Ateles geoffroyi occurs in a variety of habitats throughout Central America, including tall evergreen tropical forest, lowland tropical forest, dry successional deciduous forest, cloud forest, mangrove forest (see Wallace 2008, and references therein). Although they can be found in anthropogenically-disturbed forests, it is suggested that, in general, spider monkeys are highly susceptible to habitat degradation and often fail to persist in smaller forest fragments (Ramos-Fernández and Wallace 2008, and references therein).In general, A. geoffroyi individuals spend a large amount of their time feeding (~33.5-44%), followed by traveling (~32.6-34%), resting (~12-24.1%) and engaged in other activities (~9.8-10%) (Chapman et al. 1989, Chaves et al. 2011). However, they are able to adjust their activity patterns to overcome the effects of food scarcity in forest fragments and seasonality (Chaves et al. 2011).Spider monkey diets are highly biased towards the consumption of fruit, particularly ripe fruits, and for A. geoffroyi the percentage of fruit consumption in their diets has been reported to vary between 55% and 82% (Di Fiore et al. 2008). Other food items include leaves, flowers, invertebrates, etc. and although they obtain water from food items they may also drink water directly from tree holes, bromeliads, streams and other terrestrial water sources (Di Fiore et al. 2008).Spider monkeys live in multi-male/multi-female groups that exhibit a fission–fusion social organization, in which the members of a large stable group separate on a daily basis in small subgroups of changing sizes and composition (Di Fiore et al. 2010). This type of social organization combined with their arboreal habits and fast movements make their observations quite difficult. Only a few studies have been able to quantify the size and composition of A. geoffroyi in the wild, with group sizes varying from 16 to 56 individuals, and a female/male sex ration of 0.8 to to 4.4 (Di Fiore et al. 2010 and references therein). Group home ranges vary greatly between sites from 95 ha in Yucatan, Mexico to 962 ha in Barro Colorado Island, Panama (Wallace 2008).Average weight for adult males is 8.21 kg, ranging from 7.42 to 9 kg, and for females 7.7 kg, ranging from 6 to 9.4 kg (Ford and Davis 1992).Behavioral and ecological field studies have been carried out mostly in Costa Rica and Panama (see recent reviews on different aspects of their behavior in Campbell 2008).

Ateles geoffroyi occurs in the Mexican sates of Veracruz, Oaxaca, Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo, extending south to Guatemala and Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. There are six recognized subspecies: A. g. geoffroyi, A. g. azuerensis, A. g. frontatus, A. g. grisescens, A. g. ornatus and A. g. vellerosus.

According to Kellogg and Goldman (1944) Ateles geoffroyi geoffroyi is distributed in the coastal region around San Juan del Norte or Martina Bay in southeastern Nicaragua, extending across the lowlands to the vicinity of Lake Managua and Lake Nicaragua on the Pacific coast. It possibly extends into northern Costa Rica, although the true distribution of this species is unknown. Specimens examined by Kellogg and Goldman (1944) were from Managua, Nicaragua.

Ateles geoffroyi azuerensis occurs only in the forested mountains of the Azuero peninsula. Mendez-Carvajal (2013) surveyed the area and reported A. g. azuerensis remaining in the wild in the provinces of Veraguas and Los Santos, but already extinct in the province of Herrera.

Ateles geoffroyi frontatus is believed to range through northwestern Costa Rica and extreme western and northern Nicaragua (Kellogg and Goldman 1944). Specimens from Nicaragua examined by Kellogg and Goldman (1944) were from the following localities: Lavala; Peña Blanca; Río Siquia; Río Yoya, a tributary of the Río Princapolca; Tuma and Uluce. Allen (1908, 1910) recorded Ateles geoffroyi from the east slope of the Nicaraguan highlands, Savala (800 ft), Tuma (1,000 ft), Peña Blanca (high point in low Atlantic coast forests, 1,500 ft) and Uluce (about 1,000 ft), and in the highlands of northern Nicaragua at Matagalpa (2,000 ft). Morales-Jiménez et al. (2015) reported that individuals from Santa Rosa, Costa Rica and those from central and eastern Nicaragua form a monophyletic clade, corresponding to this subspecies. It is possible that individuals from El Salvador also belong to this subspecies, or to a distinct and previously unidentified subspecies (Morales-Jiménez et al. (2015).

Ateles geoffroyi grisescens is a subspecies of doubtful validity. Kellogg and Goldman (1944) presumed that it occurred in the valley of the Río Tuyra extending south-east through the Serranía del Sapo of extreme south-eastern Panama and the Cordillera de Baudó of north-western Colombia. Hernández-Camacho and Cooper (1976) indicated that grisescens occurs in Colombia: “…[it] is known only from the vicinity of Juradó very near the Panamanian border on the Pacific coast. It is undoubtedly restricted by the Baudó Mountains to a narrow coastal strip that may extend as far south as Cabo Corrientes.” (p.66), but Defler et al. (2003) mentioned that there are no observations to confirm its presence in Colombia.

Ateles geoffroyi ornatus is found in Panama, to the east of the Canal Zone, and to the west through the Chiriquí province to central/western Costa Rica. Heltne and Kunkel (1975) proposed that the eastern limits of this subspecies were in San Juan, Cerro Brujo, Cerro Azul and Río Pequeñi — all within the Madden Lake watershed, about 30 miles east of the Panama Canal. The limits of this subspecies in Costa Rica are not well known, but it is believed that this species occurs in the Osa Peninsula, Corcovado National Park and Carara Biological Reserve (Matamoros and Seal 2001). The population on Barro Colorado Island was introduced in the 1950s and 1960s, and it is unknown whether they belonged to a single subspecies (see Milton and Hopkins 2006).

Ateles geoffroyi vellerosus occurs in southern Veracruz, eastern Oaxaca, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan, and Qunitana Roo in Mexico, and to the south through Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. Originally, Kellogg and Goldman (1944) considered A. g. pan and A. g. yucatanensis as distinct taxa, but morphological analyses by Silva-López et al. (1996) and recent molecular work by Morales-Jiménez et al. (2015) show that individuals within this range belong to a single (though morphologically variable) taxon.

Despite of intense deforestation observed in Mesoamerica, with more than 70% of the original forest cover lost as a result of human activity (Estrada et al. 2006), the region counts with over 400 officially recognized protected areas within the distribution range of Ateles geoffroyi. However, many of these areas suffer several problems including lack of actual protection, limited number of staff, small size, poor delimitation, and isolation due to high deforestation rates in surrounding areas (Estrada et al. 2006). Among the largest extensions of protected forest where A. geoffroyi lives are the Mayan Forest, located on the borders of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, La Mosquitia, which is located in both Honduras and Nicaragua, the Indio Maiz-Tortuguero, which includes a group of reserves and indigenous territories in Nicaragua and Tortuguero National Park in Costa Rica, and La Amistad International Park, a World Heritage Site located along the Talamanca mountain range of Costa Rica and Panama.
This species is listed on CITES Appendix II (except for A. g. frontatus and A. g. ornatus, which are listed on Appendix I).